The Engagement (17 page)

“Have you called your parents?” Reverend Wendy asked.

“Oh, they’re over the moon!”

“And they’re from Norfolk . . .” It was half a question.

“Yes.” I met her gaze even as I felt Alexander’s.

“So you
are
still in contact with them?”

I hesitated. Exactly what had the minister been told?

She spread pâté thinly on a biscuit. “Will they mind you living so far away?”

“There’s plenty of room here. After I’ve redecorated, just knocked down a few walls and lightened the place up,” I said, coughing, “I’d adore it if Mum and Dad could spend part of the year with us. No, Alexander’s teasing you. I can hardly wait!”

“Very well.” The minister inhaled deeply, finishing the hors d’oeuvre. “If you feel you’re ready, truly ready,” swallowing again, “I will try to move at your speed. . . .” She waited for one of us to back out. “Okay, I’ve put together a list of questions, twenty-five questions, that you might want to consider.”

Graeme retrieved his wife’s old leather bag, and from it took two photocopied sheets, handing one to Alexander and one to me.

“THE BIG TWENTY-FIVE”

PREMARITAL COUNSELING QUESTIONS

The minister remained grave. “I’m afraid I never just marry couples without fulfilling my pastoral duties.”

“We understand—” I began.

“But we’d like to start now,” Alexander cut in.

“Well, usually I do one or two sessions before the ceremony. Some of the questions will strike you as remedial. In fact, you can have a good laugh over them, but I hope they’ll help us move on to the serious stuff and address any niggling doubts about”—she paused—“about compatibility.” A biscuit crumb was squatting in the downturned corner of her mouth. “We’ll then get together—nothing formal, of course, just with a cup of tea—and talk about your thoughts, impressions, the difficult spots you might have encountered.”

I glanced down at the questions.

1 Why do you want to marry?

2 Why do you want to marry me?

3 What values do we share?

4 Do you plan to attend church after our marriage?

5 What is your image of God?

The curlews called from outside. My image of God—and the proof of His existence—would be this house shrinking in the rearview mirror as I sped away.

6 Is it important to know one another’s physical/mental health history?

7 Do you have a criminal record?

8 Have you ever hit anyone?

From out in the hallway came a loud clanging—something heavy had fallen. The minister glanced at Alexander in alarm.

13 What are your expectations of our sexual relationship?

14 Are we comfortable discussing our sexual likes and dislikes together?

15 Are we prepared to forsake all others?

16 Do you expect or want me to change?

The blond woman’s footsteps echoed on the hall tiles, along with her expletives.

25 Can we both forgive?

Walking back into the room, she stuffed a metallic object into a soft black travel bag.

“Reverend Wendy, Graeme”—Alexander had stiffened—“obviously you know my sister, Annabel.”

Annabel’s bag bulged with chattels, which, judging by how tenderly she put it down to greet the guests, must have been valuable. Her arms were outstretched with that posh mix of hauteur and intimacy that made it impossible to tell if she loved or despised them. The minister patted her back in a manner suggesting a history of forbearance.

“Thank you,” Annabel said, turning to her brother. Her accent, like his, had that fruity, gentrified strain. “We’d be delighted to stay for dinner—Lachie’s out in the car, I’ll go and get him.”

Exiting, she slammed the front door hard behind her.

I smiled at Alexander, but he was staring at the floor.

Outside Annabel was yelling, and these yells were matched by another’s. At last she reentered with gangly, eczema-ridden Lachie slouching in after her. Shrunken and confused by long exposure to the embarrassment of his mother, he greeted his uncle awkwardly, and answered the minister’s predictable questions in monosyllables slurred through the stud on his tongue.

Would the last hours in this house be spent enduring a family dinner? With me now zoning out, fixing on the particles of dust floating on the surface of the champagne, and the carpet’s thousand knots blurred through the bottom of the glass? The siblings’ skirmishes made my former terror seem so foolish.

“Darling? My love?”

I realized Alexander was talking to me.

“Will you show our guests to the table?”

In candlelight the dining room felt cavelike. Even with the various portable heaters switched on, the room was still crosshatched with drafts. On the table, my outsize floral arrangement was central.

His sister stood at the door, holding the ashtray. “Where do you want us?”

“Annabel, will you sit to Alexander’s right, and Reverend Wendy to his left. Graeme and Lachie, if you’ll come next to me.” Impersonating the ideal fiancée, I was all the while thinking, This is the moment to say something; with him in the kitchen, this is the moment to act. As the guests arranged themselves around the table, my half-open mouth was trying to form the right words:
Please, you have to help me. He’s been holding me captive. . . .
But had Alexander been holding me captive? I could now no longer tell. One moment he seemed close enough to reasonable, restoring an orchard, caring for his animals in need, the next a madman who’d written a guide on ways to molest me.

The clock in the hallway struck nine o’clock. I started, and caught my stricken face reflected in the glass of the French doors. Past this, the moon was in a mean phase.

“Well, you’re a brave woman.” It was his sister.

“How is that?”

“We just never expected Alexander to marry. He has rather enjoyed his freedom, that’s all.” She was staring down, her scratched fingers rearranging the cutlery. “Whenever he’s seemed close to walking down the aisle . . . we don’t know, something’s always happened.”

“What sort of thing?”

She gave a little shrug. “How did you meet?”

All of them, even the teenager, seemed to collectively resist one huge smirk as they pictured him winding down his car window on a dark street corner.

“I work in real estate,” I said defensively. “Alexander is interested in a property investment.”

“Well,
you’ve
certainly found a nice property here.” Graeme tried for conviviality before his wife shot him a look.

“Oh, yes, he’s rich now that he’s sending his sheep to the Middle East.” Annabel leaned across the table and adjusted her son’s knife and fork too. “If the animals survive the journey—no, that’s not fair,” she conceded. “I hear the boats are wonderful these days, it’s when they arrive that their throats are cut.”

Alexander reentered the room, using oven mitts to carry a large silver tray.

“I was telling Liese about your live exports.”

“Lachlan, move those flowers, will you?” With a fixed grin, he waited as his nephew cleared a space for him to place the tray. Upon it was the great gleaming bird surrounded by its mound of vegetables. “Yes, invest in Australian agriculture. You can’t go wrong.”

“And how the animals die very painful deaths.”

Alexander turned to the minister. “Reverend Wendy, would you mind saying grace?”

“Oh, certainly.” Layering her chin, she stared down at a monogrammed plate. “Thank you, Our Lord, for bringing us together to celebrate this occasion with our good friends Liese and Alexander—and his family.”

Annabel pushed back her chair, clasping her cigarette packet.

“Thank you for your wisdom and grace in helping Liese and Alexander to meet each other,” the minister continued, “for giving Liese her career in real estate, and Alexander the need for . . . shelter. Thank you, Lord, for showing them your love through their love for one another. . . .”

My head lowered, I tried to ignore the diamond ring putting on its little light show. Glancing around the table, I wondered who I should ask for a lift. His sister may have hated him, but blood was thicker than water, I reasoned, turning to the minister and Graeme. They were people of God—surely their consciences would be good for a ride into town. And yet I could not be sure what Alexander had told them about me. About the letters.

“May this couple always find haven in each other.” Reverend Wendy was raising her head. “And may they know they enjoy our friendship and support in their union. Amen.”

“Amen,” mouthed her husband.

Standing, Alexander sharpened a bone-handled carving knife and started dividing up the bird.

I addressed the minister: “Do you think Jesus loved Mary Magdalene because she was a prostitute, or despite that fact?”

“Honestly,” Alexander spat, “what sort of conversation is that?”

“No, no, I don’t mind.” Reverend Wendy cleared her throat. Her speed in answering suggested she’d been considering the issue. “Luke seven does seem to refer to her as blemished. I mean,” she added, “by the standards of the day.
And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner.
In the Apocrypha
,
however, Mary Magdalene is depicted as one of Jesus’s most learned and beloved supporters, so”—the minister tilted her head from side to side, mimicking scales—“I tend to think the patriarchy’s having another free kick, and now Hollywood has glamorized the idea.”

“Wendy has done a lot of counseling,” Graeme explained, “around St. Kilda, which—Liese may or may not know—is Melbourne’s red-light district.”

“She’s discreet, of course,” Annabel vouched, a touch ambiguously; she lit a cigarette.

“Some sex workers who’ve sought help turn their lives right around.” Reverend Wendy’s nod was meaningful. “Girls—very, very young sometimes, and in the grip of dreadful heroin addictions.”

“Junkies?”
Alexander used the word like it might bite. He was irritated, even offended. “If we have to talk about this, the point is that the woman was in some way fallen and Jesus forgave her.” He was looking around the table for backup. “He forgave her. It’s a story about tolerance.”

“It might not be about
him
forgiving
her
!” I was practically shouting. “He should have forgiven those who spread lies about her, all the hypocrites and bigots who can’t stop themselves judging!”

For a while no one spoke.

Annabel blew smoke toward the ceiling.

“That’s definitely not duck,” Graeme said eventually.

“Nor goose,” added Reverend Wendy, taking a bite, rolling it in her mouth. “This is almost fishy.”

We stared at our plates, silent.

“Well?” Alexander had the air of a man with the punch line.

Raising the dark meat to my lips, my mouth would not open. “It’s swan,” I realized aloud. The one I’d seen on our picnic?

“So wait! Like you went out and shot this bird?” Gazing from behind a low fringe, Alexander’s nephew was suddenly keen-eyed.

“Basically, yes.”

“And did you get it by stealth kind of thing, using a scope?”

Lachlan’s mother stubbed out her cigarette on the side of her plate. “He probably wrung its neck.”

“No, that wouldn’t be sportsmanlike,” Alexander answered. “The bird should always be in flight.”

“What size cartridge?”

“Size four.” He coughed. “I used your grandfather’s old Browning.”

“And it took one shot?”

“It’s far more difficult, Lachlan, to shoot a swan than, say, a duck.” Alexander bit his lip. “They’re all neck, and a size-four cartridge has fewer pellets. Anyway, the dogs found where the bird landed and it was extremely aggressive; it scared the hell out of them. No, I needed two shots.”

Bile rose in my throat as I thought of the creature I’d watched gliding over the lake. . . . Now the image would fix in my head of the dogs finding the bird. And the bird knowing it was going to die, hissing as it tried to fight back, flaring its wings, thrashing, wild-eyed, desperate.

Rising woozily to my feet, I asked, “How could you?”

The others stopped, recoiling.

“How could you do this?”

Alexander looked like a child reprimanded in public—resentful, churlish—but also slyly pleased to see me so unhinged. “Liese, sit down.”

“No, I will not.”

“Sit down.”

“Don’t ever tell me what to do!”

“Fine. Stand there screaming in front of our guests.” He forked the bird’s meat up to his mouth.

As I headed to the door, the minister made a move to follow me, but he raised his hand. “Don’t worry,” I heard him say, “she’s just in a mood. I thought she liked swans.”

My heels were out of time on the tiled floor.

Walking past the staircase, I turned down the corridor to the rear of the house. There was a sour, sickening,
alive
taste in my mouth. I could smell feathers on my breath, feel them on my tongue.

My shoulder was hard against the back door, and when it opened I fell outside, gasping for real air. A lemon tree stood sentry and I was next to it, doubled over, trying to vomit, while coughing up nothing. Had he done this after he’d seen how the bird thrilled me? My lungs burned with the night’s chill; tears streamed down my face.
I hate you. I hate you completely. I would rather die than ever marry you.
That some part of me, some infinitesimal feminine part, had even considered this a possibility added to the nausea. Walking around in small circles of disgust, I cried and heaved in the dark. After eating little for the past two days I had fallen on the meat, and each piece I’d swallowed now felt like acid in my gut.

A dog growled out a long, low note of suspicion.

I stopped.

Remember the children’s game where one player turns and the other players, right behind her, mimic statues? There was no one else behind me, but the trees were playing that game, acting still, a fake sort of still, while something fluttered in the highest branches. I could hear these branches moving in the wind, but glancing up, all I saw were out-of-focus stars. The air’s bite, at first welcome and purifying, now made the shiver in the small of my back turn chronic.